PaperChef June 2011: Rye bread toasts with chocolate, strawberries and lime

It's time for a Paper Chef, a food blogging event with pedigree (launched by Owen back in 2004, now co-hosted with Ilva and Mike. I'm embarrassed to admit that I've only participated twice before - #8 (spinach, olives, Cheddar cheese, potatoes/cream) and #15 (limes, beetroots, pears and aphrodisiac of your choice)), but with Ilva asking us all so nicely to participate, I couldn't say no :)

The ingredients this month - bread, berries, chocolate and lime. I won't dwell on the difference between bread ('leib') and white bread ('sai') in Estonian - suffice to say that even after living in an Anglophone country for seven years, I automatically thought of our dark Estonian rye bread when I spotted 'bread' in that list of ingredients. Only later did it occur to me that I could have gone the 'white bread' (aka 'wheat bread') route, perhaps with summer pudding with lime-macerated berries and white chocolate and mascarpone mousse? Mmmm...

The rules of Paper Chef do not say that you must restrict yourself to those four ingredients alone. However, I immediately remembered a little neat idea I had seen on the Finnish Herkut.net site a while ago - warm rye bread toasts with melted chocolate and sliced strawberries. I added some grated lime zest for, well, extra zest - and using just the four ingredients that were required - and loved the result! I can easily see serving this at one of the many patio parties or summer grill events that are about to follow.

A word of warning, however. While it's a dessert sure to please all the young ones, it's no S'Mores that you grab between your hands and eat without staining a thing (well, couple of cookie crumbs on the floor, perhaps). Our daughter Nora approached her warm rye bread with chocolate and strawberries with gusto, but in the process she managed to smear melted chocolate all over her :)



Rye bread toasts with chocolate, strawberries and lime zest
(Röstitud koorikleib šokolaadi ja maasikatega)

You can use any type of rye bread here - those flat rye breads, halved horizontally ('koorikleib') are ideal, or then thickly sliced naturally leavened rye bread. I used a recently introduced new product at the Estonian market - saib (sai+leib, get it?!) - tastes and looks like white bread, but it's made with 100% rye flour.



sliced rye bread
dark chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Callebaut bittersweet chocolate couverture chips)
strawberries,
lime zest, thinly grated

Toast the bread until slightly golden and aromatic. Immediately top with chopped chocolate and strawberries, leave for a few minutes, until the chocolate melts.
Grate some lime zest over the strawberries.
Serve at once.